ave me. Take your thirty lances and your young
brother and ride home. Then, safe in your island fortress of Thrieve,
blot out of your heart all memory that ever you found pleasure in a
creature so miserable as Sybilla de Thouars."

"But," said the young Earl, passionately, "tell me why so, my lady. I
do not understand. What obstacle can there be? You tell me that you
love me, that you are not betrothed. Your kinsman is an honourable
man, a marshal and an ambassador of France, a cousin of the Duke of
Brittany, a reigning sovereign. Moreover, am not I the Douglas? I am
responsible to no man. William Douglas may wed whom he will--king's
daughter or beggar wench. Why should he not join with the honourable
daughter of an honourable house, and the one woman he has ever loved?"

The girl let her velvet cap fall on the ground, and sank her face
between her hands. Her whole body was shaken with emotion.

"Go--go," she cried, starting to her feet and standing before him,
"call out your lances and ride home this night. Never look more upon
the face of such a thing as Sybilla de Thouars. I bid you! I warn you!
I command you! I thought I had been of stone, but now when I see you,
and hear your words, I cannot do that which is laid upon me to do."

William of Douglas smiled.

"I cannot go," he said simply, "I love you. Moreover, I will not go--I
am Earl of Douglas."

The girl clasped her hands helplessly.

"Not if I tell you that I have deceived you, led you on?" she said.
"Not if I swear that I am the slave of a power so terrible that there
are no words in any language to tell the least of the things I have
suffered?"

The Earl shook his head. The girl suddenly stamped her foot in anger.
"Go--go, I tell you," she cried; "stay not a day in this accursed
place, wherein no true word is spoken and no loyal deed done, save
those which come forth from your own true heart."

"Nay," said William Douglas, with his eyes on hers, "it is too late,
Sybil. I have kissed the red of your lips. Your head hath lain on my
breast. My whole soul is yours. I cannot now go back, even if I would.
The boy I have been, I can be no more for ever."

The girl rose from the stone on which she had been sitting. There was
a new smile in her eyes. She held out her hands to the youth who
stood so erect and proud before her. "Well, at the worst, William
Douglas," she said, "you may never live to wear a white head, but at
least you shall touch the tree of